CFA’s Annual Report for the calendar year 2021 has been published summarising key activities and aims including:

• EU Listeria micro criteria: Shared intelligence with industry and UK Government on mooted changes to EU law, established and leading Industry Listeria Group. Developed lobbying strategy and messaging seeking to retain current effective food safety measures. Currently building an international coalition of interested parties in readiness for consultation.
• Brexit: Composite products focus. Established and leading SPS Certification WG of industry, certifiers and Port Health engaging with Government resolving issues and supporting eCertification development through defra. Tracking and reporting on EHC applications, certifier burden and costs. Presented evidence to UK Trade & Business Commission, featuring in Interim Report.
• Lm Biome: Secured clarity from UK Government on legal status of novel microbial mitigation. Set out considerations for practical work. Developed project to validate microbiological method.
• COVID-19: Best practice exchange and alerts system operating 24/7/365 for members. Programmed multidepartment Government liaison resolving regulatory, policy and incident management issues.
• Vac Pack/MAP foods: Following having secured ACMSF and FSA reviews of fresh meat inclusion, CFA was appointed to the FSA WG feeding into ACMSF’s risk review of original 1992 guidance.
• Chilled Education marked its 10 year anniversary and won (for the second time) the Food and Drink Federation’s Education Initiative of the Year Award, cited as “Outstanding, sustained educational initiative, highly creative, tailored to age groups and professionally presented.”

CFA’s priorities for 2022 cover:

• Education/skills
• Building knowledge
• Lobbying for positive change
• External engagement
• Knowledge transfer

There are many government policy initiatives and many retailer-driven activities aiming for the agricultural sector to become more sustainable, and the number of these policies and activities is growing. Defra’s 25 Year Environment Plan is one of these. It requires food to be produced sustainably and also sets a number of environmental targets.

The Government has also stated its intention for UK to become net zero carbon by 2050. The BRC has stated its aim for its members to become net zero carbon by 2040 and some retailers are bringing this date forward. This places onus on the farming community to meet a number of sustainability indicators such as land use, chemical input, biodiversity waste, water and greenhouse gases (GHG).  But there remains an important issue of measuring most of these indicators in a consistent way. The agricultural community needs tools necessary to respond to these challenges.

This document gives an overview of agricultural sustainability initiatives (19/5/22).

See also: Sustainability in agriculture/fresh produce

Food and feed trade associations, hauliers, farmers and veterinary and environmental health professional organisations have joined together to propose in a new report an urgent new veterinary agreement and streamlined processes to resolve crippling restrictions to exports to the EU, Britain’s largest trading partner.

Sir Roger Gale MP, who sits on the cross-party UK Trade and Business Commission, said:
“This important report highlights the systemic challenges facing food exporters and the need for urgent solutions. This will all help inform the cross-party recommendations we are developing on how current barriers to trade with the EU can be addressed.”

The cross-party UK Trade and Business Commission will be examining this issue in detail at its evidence session today on a potential EU-UK veterinary agreement, which will hear from leading industry representatives including the British Veterinary Association, British Poultry Council, Chartered Institute of Environmental Health and the National Farmers Union.

For the last five months British exporters have faced often insurmountable difficulties with post-Brexit red tape and disruption at the UK-EU border. The new relationship between Great Britain and the EU (from 1 January 2021), has meant that British businesses now face a plethora of new requirements imposed on exports to the EU. These include international sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) controls which significantly add to bureaucracy, cost and time.
This is having a profound negative impact on the amount of food exported to the EU. The ONS reports a sharp drop in exports – a decrease of £8.9 billion to £137 billion in the first quarter of 2021, significantly impacting the viability of businesses in Great Britain.

Businesses are working incredibly hard to navigate these new barriers but Government help is needed. The SPS Certification Working Group, a cross-industry, veterinary and environmental health group, in its new report Minimising SPS Friction in EU Trade, today (Thursday 10 June) calls on the Government to help resolve the severe impact on trade through a new approach by:

• Improving current systems to remove archaic bureaucracy, reducing time, error and costs
• Reviewing requirements for inspection and certification
• Negotiating a form of mutual veterinary agreement with the EU which would ease problems trading food and feed between GB and the EU and GB to NI, and from EU to GB when full SPS import controls take effect in 2022 when, arguably, the situation will worsen further.

As Nick Allen of British Meat Processors Association explains: “The rigid but inconsistent enforcement of ‘third country’ trading rules is eroding the profitability and potential viability of exporting products of animal origin to the EU and NI – even though the differences between the food standards are virtually non-existent.”

If traders are to survive and thrive under the UK’s established Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA) with the EU, new ways of managing the system must be developed to secure the sustainability of businesses going forward. Especially since the situation is likely to get much worse next year when full import controls take effect.

The report, Minimising SPS Friction in EU Trade, calls on the Government to engage with the EU to build a system that works for exporters rather than against them. Without Government support in investing in sufficient resources and systems, a detrimental effect on the sustainability of British businesses can be expected.

The Report is available on the industry EU Exit Food Hub and here.

Notes to Editors

The AHDB has also recently published figures on the impact of the new requirements on trade, showing a 28% decrease in value of food and live animal UK exports to the EU in Q1 of 2021 (https://ahdb.org.uk/Eu-exit-Q1-trade-data-UK).

The SPS Certification Working Group is made up of food and feed trade associations, hauliers, farmers and veterinary and environmental health professional organisations, working together to minimise trade friction in Export Health Certificate (EHC)/SPS products between GB and the EU/NI by identifying issues and proposing solutions to Government and its Agencies.

The total value to the UK economy of the members of the Working Group is well in excess of £100bn per annum.

See more information on the SPS Certification Working Group

Thursday 10 June 2021

CFA has developed this checklist with the British Veterinary Association to assist food businesses in ensuring that Certifying Officers (Official Vets) have appropriate professional status, required specific training and adequate insurance cover for their food certification work for export, e.g. EHCs. Links are included to supporting information on specific Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons, APHA and Improve-OV requirements.

29 January 2021

This new CFA Guidance produced in collaboration with Food Standards Scotland, aims to raise awareness of the need to use analytical laboratories with the right expertise, accreditations, using appropriate methods and facilitate development of partnerships between such third-party laboratories and their customers in the food industry, moving away from purely transactional arrangements.

Greater transparency is needed from both FBOs and laboratories to achieve this, with greater understanding of each other’s needs and impacts on business and working to agreed Key Performance/Continuous Improvement Indicators regarding resilience, reliability, relevance and sustainability of analytical services, all of which are covered.

The focus of this first edition is on microbiological analytical services provided by a third party to a FBO.

The Guidance is a free download and includes:

• Checklist
• Fitness for Purpose – Laboratories and Methods
• Provision of Samples to Laboratories
• Reporting Results
• Complaints Procedure
• Selecting a laboratory through tender
• Special measures for laboratories
• ContractsAppendices
  1. Terminology
  2. Microbiology
  2.1 Legally Recognised Methods
  2.2 What other Microbiological Tests are Relevant for Various Food Materials

  Tables
  1: Industrywide Continuous Improvement Indicators for Laboratories
  2: Findings, Laboratory Action and Communication of Results
  3: Microbiological Methods – Specified by EU Regulation 2073/2005
  4: Typical Expected Turnaround of Microbiological Tests if Compliant with Standard Methods

CFA welcomes FSA’s revised approach to shelf-life guidance for chilled fresh vacuum packed/MAP beef, lamb and pork, which removes the 10 day limit imposed on these foods in its 2017 guidance.

As set out already in food law, the change means that from now on, food business operators (FBOs) can set a shelf life for fresh beef, pork and lamb in line with their existing food safety management systems, in the same way they already do for other types of food, and did for these fresh meats previous to the 2017 guidance.

FSA’s decision reflects decades of international evidence of safety of low oxygen packed fresh beef, pork and lamb, and a Quantitative Microbiological Risk Assessment carried out in CFA’s first SUSSLE (Sustainable Shelf Life Extension) project published in Applied Environmental Microbiology in January 2016 (Barker et al).

That work showed that fresh meat has the lowest prevalence and loading with spores of non-proteolytic Clostridium botulinum of any food material.

Risk assessments show exceptionally high levels of safety protection from standard legally required hygiene measures from the abattoir on. These assessments most notably include those commissioned by FSA (project B13006) published in 2006 and as a peer reviewed paper in 2008, and by Meat &  Livestock Australia/BMPA published in 2019, and as a peer reviewed paper in 2020.

Industry is referred to CFA/QIB/LFR/MLA/BRC 2018 guidance on Setting Shelf Life of Chilled Foods in Relation to Non-proteolytic Clostridium botulinum, and BRCGS guidance (2018) in relation to fresh meat as the standard approach to taken and BRCGS guidance (2018) in relation to fresh meat as the standard approach to taken.

These neither specify shelf life limits, nor any requirement for challenge testing.

FSA recognises that small and medium sized food businesses may not have suitable resources or expertise. Such businesses will be able to use the January 2020 ACMSF recommendation for VP/MAP chilled fresh beef, lamb and pork, should they wish to do so, i.e. a shelf-life of 13 days maximum without further activity to demonstrate the safety in relation to C. botulinum.

CFA’s DG Karin Goodburn MBE said: “It is very welcome that FSA has removed fresh meat from the scope of its guidance. Both non-statutory guidance and legislation must have a sound scientific basis and be shown to be addressing risk proportionately. We are delighted that our previous research (SUSSLE) and guidance work is seen as setting out the appropriate future approach – it is already the bedrock of standard longstanding industry practice. We look forward to contributing to the next phase of the review of FSA’s VP/MAP guidance,  which remains unique internationally.”

10 December 2020

The EU chlorate MRLs Regulation 749/2020 has been in force since 28/6/20. The UK’s CFA-led Food & Biocides Industry Group (FBIG) and its partners secured in the Regulation more rational MRLs, inclusion of the EU legal definition of ‘processed’ foods, and special rules for processed foods.

See FBIG’s Chlorate MRLs Compliance Best Practice Pointers for FBOs – fresh produce primary production and washing

Additional guidance for other processed/multicomponent foods is being developed by FBIG.

For supplementary resources and background visit www.chilledfood.org/FBIG

CFA is a signatory to an industry letter to the Chief UK Negotiator, Lord Frost, and the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, Rt Hon Michael Gove MP warning that organic food exports  an outright ban if equivalence is not agreed in a Brexit deal:

Brexit uk-organics-letter from industry to David Frost & Michael Gove 8/9/20

For Brexit-related guidance for the food and drink sector see EUExitFoodHub

European Commission Guidance on Import of Composite products into the EU from 21 April 2021 (doc 15-3-21)

Our latest Annual Report has been published, covering the 2019 calendar year.

• L. monocytogenes & hospital-catered food:

• revised BSA guidance produced reflecting high care/risk best practice and not zero tolerance
• lobbied PHE/PSA & STS to adopt the guidance
• by invitation presented on best practice at Welsh Govt/NHS/FSA Wales workshop
• engaged with national media

• Biocides:

• Lobbying led to more rational proposed chlorate MRLs and special rule for most ‘processed’ food
• GFSI microbial resistance paper, user & risk assessment guidance published

• SUSSLE:

• Implementation Guidance rewritten
• User exam developed and implemented
• Aldi signed NDA
• Training delivered to Aldi, ASDA, Tesco & members
• SUSSLE2 B cereus risk assessment published

• Third Party Laboratories:

• FSS, LGC and PHE engaged on CFA guidance

• ACMSF:

• FSA 2017 VP/MAP guidance review secured, and research and issues presented by invitation,
• European Chilled Food Federation endorsed international guidance on Shelf Life & Non-Proteolytic C. botulinum

Priorities for 2020 are set out on the penultimate page, and cover:

• Education/skills
• Building knowledge
• Lobbying for positive change
• External engagement
• Knowledge transfer

CFA and the IOSH Food and Drink Industries Group is pleased to introduce its next event, ‘Better backs, better business‘, aimed at tackling work-related musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs) in the food and drink industries sector.

This event has been designed to raise awareness of MSDs and associated manual handling issues in the sector, providing effective and proven solutions and offering guidance on how to tackle this increasing problem.

What’s in it for you?

While promoting cross-company initiatives, this event will provide delegates with valuable ideas to reduce the frequency of musculoskeletal injuries, offering practical solutions based on real case studies, guidance and training techniques for delegates to take back and apply to their workplaces, with the opportunity to participate in simple warm up exercises to prepare for work.

Who should attend

This event is aimed at food industry managers and team leaders who want to improve their workplace ergonomics, plus those from small-medium businesses aiming to reduce manual handling issues at their sites.

This event will provide a great opportunity for those working in health and safety a valuable opportunity for networking, with the possibility for members to update their CPD.

What you need to know

Bookings

Bookings are now open. To book your place online, please ‘add to basket’ on the IOSH website, and follow the onscreen instructions. Alternatively, you can download the event flyer to complete the booking form, and return to bookings@iosh.com.

Download the event flyer to view the full programme.

Exhibition

An exhibition will be available throughout the event, supported by industry specialist companies showcasing various products and materials to support the event.

Stands are priced at £300+VAT. If you would like to hold an exhibition stand, or require additional information, please contact Ellen Fazackerley, Events Coordinator.

CFA’s longstanding relationship with waste reduction and sustainability charity WRAP,  spans almost two decades. The Association was a founding signatory of WRAP’s Courtauld 2025 (C2025) Commitment and a signatory of WRAPs Courtauld Commitment 2030.

CFA is also a member of a group that is developing WRAP Scope 3 Green House Gases Measurement and Reporting Protocols. CFA encourages its members to support The Food Waste Reduction Roadmap (a free access initiative for UK food businesses, developed by industry in collaboration with WRAP and the IGD).

The commitments bring together food organisations – from producer to consumer – in voluntary agreements to make food and drink production and consumption more sustainable. They have set various targets that help signatories on their journey to become more sustainable by setting individual business targets.

CFA Director Karin Goodburn explains: “Chilled prepared food has an excellent track record in sustainability, with, for example, more than 99% of food waste diverted from landfill. So we are natural partners for WRAP in this commitment. CFA’s longstanding sustainability activity, our Chilled Education programme including advice on how best to store and use food, and our shelf life research (SUSSLE) all contribute to C2030’s aims.”

“The Courtauld Commitment 2030 is a voluntary agreement from WRAP, that enables collaborative action across the entire UK food chain to deliver farm-to-fork reductions in food waste, greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and water stress. We are delighted to work in partnership with the CFA, as one of our engagement partners, to collaborate, promote changes and share best practice which will help deliver the collective Courtauld 2030 ambition. In a world where the effects of climate change are becoming ever more visible and damaging, it’s ever more important that everyone contributes to play their part in achieving our shared goals.” Catherine David, Chair of Courtauld Director of Behaviour Change and Business Programmes WRAP

CFA is proud to have built up partnership with various stakeholders to accelerate sustainability agenda.

26 March 2024